Broken Security: 5 Ways To Avoid The Coming Cryptopocalypse

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Public key cryptography, the current method used for secure communications and authentication on the Internet, is about to be broken, according to security researchers. Security experts from iSEC Partners said it could be cracked in the next five years. Current cryptosystems use either the RSA or Diffie-Hellman (DH) algorithms, which depend on discrete logarithm, a fundamental algebraic method, and factoring. Mathematicians are getting closer to breaking them, the researchers said. Making matters worse is the low cost of additional computational power, which speeds the process of finding a crack. Speaking to attendees at the Black Hat 2013 security conference, the researchers advocated a move to elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), which has remained at its full strength since it was first presented in 1985.